DIRECTOR OF BRASS STUDIES Dr. Ross Walter, Professor of Music at Virginia Commonwealth University (VCU) serves as brass music faculty and head of the brass area. He came to VCU in 1998 from his position as trombonist with the Baton Rouge Symphony. He received Doctoral and Masters degrees from Louisiana State University (LSU) and a B.Mus.Ed. degree from the University of Idaho. At LSU he was honored with the Most Outstanding Graduate Teaching Assistant Award. Dr. Walter’s is a performer and teacher on low brass instruments, an innovator in cross-disciplinary artwork involving music and visual art, and a producer of international musical festivals. Recent highlights of Dr. Walter’s performance career include performances with Bogota Symphony Orchestra and Panama City Symphony members as faculty guest artist at Universidad Bellas Artes’ 2023 International Brass Festival in Cartagena. He also appeared at the 2023 United States Army Band Tuba-Euphonium Conference in Washington, DC. Other recent appearances include the International Trombone Festival and the Tuba-Euphonium Conference in Budapest, Hungary. He will perform at the International Tuba-Euphonium Conference in Valencia, Spain in June 2025. In 2022, Dr. Walter and Professor Bohyun Yoon from VCU Craft/Material Studies embarked on a project to make visible the vibrations of music with blown glass and lasers, projecting images on large screens. Their artistic presentation was selected by national peer review and presented to capacity audiences at the Wilmington Contemporary in Delaware and the Detroit Film Theater at the 2023 Glass Arts Symposium. Dr. Walter annually produces and directs his week-long Festival Internacional de Brass in Cartagena, Colombia. This creative undertaking also interweaves with his international service as it brings together brass musicians to perform, celebrate brass music and create cultural dialogue. Through these festivals, Dr. Walter has strengthened the Cartagena brass community and helped young musicians by providing instruments, performances, and master classes. In other service, Dr. Walter consulted as a teacher of instructors of Brass for Africa in Kampala, Uganda and frequently represents VCU at national/international conferences including The Midwest Clinic, American Trombone Workshop, Music Educators National Conference, and the Tuba-Euphonium Conference in Linz, Austria. Dr. Walter is a passionate teacher and promoter for the VCU School of the Arts, He enjoys teaching students of all ages and works to recruit them to major in music at VCU. After enrolling, these students study brass performance with Dr. Walter, participate in his chamber music program, classes in fundamentals, pedagogy, and other subjects. He has introduced 55 VCU students to international environments through 9 years of study-abroad classes in Colombia and a London tour. These activities attract talented students and produce competitive graduates as evidenced by graduate school admission, assistantships, scholarships, and job placement. His work with VCU’s brass studios has advanced their trajectory, propelling individual students and ensembles to new standards of excellence.